Smithsonian.com

Revisiting the First Ladies’ Homes

The oft-overlooked lives of America's first ladies are on display in house museums across the country

Eleanor Roosevelt used Val-Kill, located in New York, as a retreat, office and “laboratory” for social change. This is the only national historic site dedicated to a first lady.
(Courtesy of NPS WD Urbin)

By
Robin T. Reid

smithsonian.com
June 29, 2009

Preserving the memory of the nation's first female president is a task that Farron and William Smith take seriously. Last fall, the couple opened a museum in Wyethville, Virginia, dedicated to Edith Bolling Wilson, who some historians claim ran the U.S. government while her husband, Woodrow Wilson, recovered from a massive stroke during his second term. The Smiths own the two-story brick building in this small southwest Virginia city, where Mrs. Wilson was born more than 100 years ago.

"We decided that once our kids were educated, we'd devote our time to making the museum," Farron Smith says. "We've spent a lot of money on it; we could have re-educated our children again. But we just feel a real responsibility to preserve this for future generations."

In doing so, the Smiths have joined forces with a clutch of other torchbearers for former first ladies. Their birthplaces, childhood homes and post-White House residences have been turned into museums and memorials across the country. The National Park Service operates some of them, while others are community efforts.

The Mamie Doud Eisenhower birthplace in Boone, Iowa, is a fine example of the latter. The wooden cottage had a succession of owners after Mrs. Eisenhower's birth in 1896 and decades later faced demolition. A group formed to save the house, and a neighbor then offered to tear down a house on a lot across the street to make way for the Doud residence. In 1975, the birthplace was moved to its new location and the museum opened five years later.

"We have a struggle," explains Charles Irwin, executive director of the Boone County Historical Society, which oversees the museum. "We've had declining attendance over the years, because we're getting further away from the Eisenhower era."

Two other factors affect the plight of first ladies museums: money and status.

"For so long, there was a certain devaluation of women in general, and wives in particular," said Carl Sferrazza Anthony, historian for the National First Ladies' Library – housed in the family home of 25th first lady Ida Saxton McKinley – in Canton, Ohio. "Sometimes it is merely practicality; the family may have needed money and sold the house or torn it down to sell for the property value. In the cases of those who came from politically powerful, socially prominent or wealthy families into which presidents married, some of these sites have been preserved…[T]he importance of the Todd family [Abraham Lincoln's in-laws] in Kentucky and Republican history [meant] that house was preserved."

Sometimes neither money nor prestige is enough. Take the case of Hammersmith Farm in Newport, R.I., where Jacqueline Bouvier spent her childhood summers and held the reception for her wedding to John F. Kennedy. In 1977, the family sold the estate to a private group called Camelot Gardens, which opened it as a museum. "It felt as if the family had just stepped outside," Anthony recalls. "Unfortunately, the state government didn't decide to buy it and it became too expensive to maintain. It was sold to a private owner and all the furnishings auctioned off."

The existing museums are cautiously optimistic that the keen interest in new first lady, Michelle Obama, drums up business for them. Anthony says the library has been flooded with queries from the media since Mrs. Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention last summer.

And about 200 miles southwest of the library, the number of visitors to the Lucy Hayes Heritage Center in Chillicothe, Ohio, was up to 149 for the month of April; the small frame house where the 19th president's wife was born typically never gets more than 500 visitors throughout the year.

"People often crack that had these women not been married to these men, we'd never know of them," Anthony said. "But the other side of that truth is that had many of these men not married the women they did, we'd never have heard of these men."

The Saxton McKinley house, located in Canton, Ohio, was home to former President William McKinley and his wife Ida. They lived there during the period of time when William served in the U.S. House of Representatives.
(Courtesy of The National First Ladies' Library)

Eleanor Roosevelt used Val-Kill, located in New York, as a retreat, office and “laboratory” for social change. This is the only national historic site dedicated to a first lady.
(Courtesy of NPS WD Urbin)

Bess Truman grew up in this home located at 219 North Delaware Street, Independence, Mo. Bess and Harry S. Truman moved into the home after their marriage in 1919 and returned to the house after living in the White House.
(Bettmann / Corbis)

Located in Boone, Iowa, The Mamie Eisenhower birthplace went through multiple owners. In 1975 it was moved across the street to its current location to avoid being demolished completely.
(Suzanne Caswell)

The Mary Todd Lincoln house in Lexington, Ky. was the first house restored to honor a first lady.
(Kevin R. Morris / Corbis)

Located in Philadelphia, Pa., the Dolley Todd house was built by lawyer John Todd and his wife Dolley Payne. When Todd died, Payne married James Madison, who was to become the fourth president of the United States.
(Library of Congress)

Edith Bolling Wilson’s two-story brick house is located in Wytheville, Va. The home was constructed in the 1840s and has three storefronts at street level.
(The Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Foundation)

Lucy Webb Hayes was born in this house in Chillicothe, Ohio on August 28, 1831.
(The Ohio Department of Development, Division of Tourism)

White Haven was the family home of Julia Dent Grant. This photo taken in 1860 is the earliest known photo of the main house.
(National Park Services)

Tags

We Recommend

A giant killer hornet war is waged between two colonies, and the resources, territories, and survival of a new generation are at stake. Watch the battle unfold as these huge hornets risk their lives for their kingdoms.